Short, short commentaries on note-worthy things.

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Nora Oliveros of the Department of Budget and Management said that only PHP “5 billion remained of the confiscated Marcos wealth.” After being spent and allocated to the CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) and various departments through the years, only the said amount remained. Wow. More details here. Further more, the budget for CARP this year is PHP 16 billion and yet, they’re only left with PHP 13 billion, from which PHP 8 billion will still be deducted to compensate the human rights victims.

“(It’s) practically gone, your Honor,” Oliveros said.

If I were present in that Senate hearing, I would have loudly reacted, “Huwat???”

How could you spend that much money so fast? Where did each centavo go? Well, the answer should be easy: Just collect the “receipts” whether they’re official print-outs or written on table napkins. There ought to be a paper trail. Somewhere. Assuming though that every entry is accounted for, it still does not answer how can they spend so much in such a short amount of time? And be under budget now?

The only answer I can think of as of this writing is this: they overspent. Case in point, they hired 10,000 personnel for CARP. Did (or do) they really need that many people to work for CARP? Ten thousand people just seem far too many don’t you think?

Sigh. The government needs to hire better managers next time. (I’m pretty sure there will be a next time.)